U.N. agencies fear for fleeing Nigerians

GENEVA — U.N. agencies said Friday that tens of thousands of Nigerians are fleeing deadly attacks and the continuing clashes between militants and national forces in the country’s troubled northeastern Borno state.

The latest militant attack Wednesday drove out as much as 80% of the population of Damasak, according to the U.N. refugee agency, who said as many as 65,000 people were on the move.

“Assailants looted and burned down private homes, warehouses of humanitarian agencies, a police station, a clinic, and also a [refugee agency] facility,” the U.N. agency’s spokesman, Babar Baloch, told reporters in Geneva. It marked the third such attack in a week, he said.

There are “very worrying” reports of clashes between insurgent groups and Nigeria’s armed forces, said spokesman Jens Laerke of the U.N. humanitarian affairs agency.

Armed groups have been attacking humanitarian facilities and at times conducting house-to-house searches, reportedly looking for civilian aid workers, he said.

Most humanitarian operations have been suspended in the area since Sunday because of the insecurity, Laerke said.

“The situation on the ground is extremely critical,” he said. “If this continues, it will be impossible — maybe for longer periods of time — for us to deliver aid to people who desperately need it.”